New Delhi: The Brijmohan Lall Munjal-led Hero Group — primarily known for manufacturing motorcycles — has formally entered the smart home devices category through a new brand Qubo under its group company Hero Electronix.
The foray comes at a time when Chinese brands such as Lenovo and Xiaomi have already launched smart devices in the market.
Hero Electronix on Tuesday launched the first device under this umbrella -- a voice-controlled, smart indoor camera with features such as facial recognition at ₹13,490. With an 1080p HD camera, it helps a user remotely monitor the home through streaming on the smartphone. With Alexa built-in, users can also access a wide range of services across news, music, weather, and reminders with simple voice commands.
Other devices include smart gas sensor, smoke sensor, and door/window sensor at ₹3,000 each.
The products will be available across major e-commerce sites and retail stores from 27 September.
“Ultimately we want to be a consumer technology company. We have identified other areas also. We also plan to launch more smart devices around home automation, connected cars, smart health, etc, over the next few years," Hero Electronix founder-director Ujjwal Munjal told Mint, without divulging the revenue target for the company.
“We have invested close to ₹350 crore so far in Hero Electronix and we will put in additional investment of ₹150-200 crore over the next couple of years to bring out more devices," Munjal said.
Ujjwal Munjal is the son of Suman Kant Munjal, chairman of Hero Electronix.
The Delhi-based company had entered the electronics sector in 2015. It acquired a majority stake in Mybox Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which makes set-top boxes (STBs) in India in the same year. In 2016, Hero Electronix acquired a significant minority stake in Bengaluru-based semiconductor test engineering services company Tessolve Semiconductor.
